Official Pandora app coming to Windows Phone 8 today

At October's Windows Phone 8 launch event, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore stood on stage and eagerly announced a laundry list of popular apps that were confirmed to be coming to the platform in the coming months. To the delight of many, Pandora was on the list -- and to top it all off, the music streaming service would come ad-free for the first year. The question then shifted to when it would actually make it to the Windows Phone Store, and we finally have an answer: today.

The free app will take advantage of a Live Tile in all three possible sizes, the two largest showing which song is currently playing, along with its album cover art. Pandora's arrival also marks another milestone: not only will it be available on Kids Corner, it's also the first app capable of automatically filtering out explicit content when the feature is activated. The service will only be available for Windows Phone 8 devices, but anyone accessing Pandora through alternate apps on Windows Phone 7.x can continue to do so.